So, my lovelies I'm back! And I have a nice shiny, new chapter for you. Now I did say this might differ from the summary in the second chapter, but not by too much. Also, I should mention that Pandemonium High is a mix of American, British (largely based off of Harry Potter) and Australian school techniques/subjects, but it takes place in Britain somewhere. Anyway, enjoy!

Disclaimer: I do not own Sherlock, the Avengers, Doctor Who or Supernatural.

Chapter Four:

Two weeks and four days after the incident, which spread through the school like wildfire and was soon dubbed 'the Dum-E Debacle' in certain circles, the four boys involved were called to Coulson's office during second period. Of course, no one knew exactly how the four boys had gotten into Fury's office, only that Tony's pet robot Dum-E was responsible for the gaping hole in the wall and that Tony, Bruce, Rory and John were all 'serving time' for their involvement. No one was really surprised that Tony was in trouble, seeing as he had a tendency to blow up chemistry labs and build miniature robot armies to take over the football field. They did find it rather curious that Bruce, Rory and John, the slightly more stable, dependable, quiet friends who were supposed to keep Tony grounded, were also being punished. No amount of questioning could get them to open up about what happened, and rumours arose in varying degrees of lunacy. Coulson's favourite was most definitely the one involving a secret science experiment gone wrong, though he also liked the one about the voodoo doll and a backfired spell. However, now wasn't the time to dwell on silly theories. Now was the time to be serious.

"Boys, I'm going to offer you a chance at redemption." Coulson said.

The four didn't move, though John's eyes narrowed in suspicion and Bruce's hand twitched.

"Now, what this means is your three months of detention is cut back to nil, and you will no longer be required to show up for chores. Your curfew will go back to their regular ten o'clock deadline. However, if you wish to visit the village, you will need to resubmit your signed permission forms."

"What'll we have to do in exchange?" Tony asked.

"We have a new student." Coulson replied. "Now, he isn't your ordinary, everyday student. In fact, his intelligence puts him on par with Tony and Bruce."

Tony let out a sarcastic laugh. "Somehow I highly doubt that."

Coulson frowned slightly, but chose to ignore the comment. "He's one year younger than the four of you, but he's highly advanced for his age. But he's very… socially awkward. He doesn't make friends easily and seeing as he's moving to a new school in the middle of the year, it's only going to be harder. Now, you four have been identified by a number of staff as being friendly and helpful, so we've decided it would be for the best if you were to be his guides. It won't take much. All you have to do is show him where everything is, offer to help him if he gets stuck with anything, and perhaps even invite him to one of your little get-togethers."

"You mean you want us to babysit him so he doesn't go into some emo-ish state and want to kill himself." Tony said.

Coulson's eyebrow twitched. "No. We simply want you to… make him feel welcome. As I understand it, he hasn't been very… popular at his other schools, and it has lead to a… negative development of his social skills. Therefore, it was requested that we organise a group of students who could extend the hand of friendship to him."

"How much is the family paying you?" Tony queried.

"Tony!" John snapped. In reality, he wanted to say, 'shut the fuck up, you fool, he's offering us a chance to get out of detention and all the shit you got us into so shut up and let him talk', but decided that he could fit the full meaning into that one word and not get in trouble for swearing.

Tony glanced towards John reproachfully, before averting his eyes and staring at the floor.

"Anyway, his name is Sherlock Holmes and he'll be here soon. So, are you going to volunteer and help him out or will I just have to find someone else?"

"No, no, we'll do it." Rory said quickly.

"It- it sounds… fun." Bruce added lamely. "A chance to, er, make a new friend."

"Good. I'll go see if he's arrived." Coulson nodded, getting to his feet and heading off. "And Stark, stay out of my things." He added as the door swung shut.
"Why does everyone think I'm going to go to go through their stuff?" Tony moaned.

"Because you have an uncontrollable curiosity to know everything about everyone." Bruce replied drily.

"I do not! Coincidentally, how's your relationship with that Sparrow girl going?"

Bruce scowled. "We broke up. A month ago, Tony."

"How was I supposed to know? You never tell me anything! Honestly, Bruce, it's as if you don't value me enough to keep me informed of your daily life!"

"You sound like a married couple." Rory remarked.

"If we were a married couple, don't you think I'd be a little more pissed to find out he'd been seeing someone else?" Tony asked, eyebrow raised.

"It could have been a very open marriage."

"Could we move back to the matter at hand? We should at least be having a miniature party over the fact we're no longer in deep shit." John said.

"We're still going to have to babysit this Sherlock guy." Tony pointed out.

"So? You heard Coulson. He's smart. You and Bruce can connect with him using science. Perhaps make him the third 'Science Bro'." John replied.

"First off, you can just make someone a Science Bro. They have to prove they are worthy of the title. Secondly, this guy's 'socially awkward'. That's code for antisocial. How do we know he even wants us to be his friends?"

John rolled his eyes. "Or he could just be shy. You never know, Tony, he could end up being your BFF. The only way you'll know is if you give him a chance."

Tony let out a long-suffering sigh. "Fine. But seriously, when did we become the welcoming committee for this school?"

"Well, Coulson said we were recommended by the staff." Rory said uncertainly.

"Pfft! More like we're the only ones who'll be desperate enough to agree!" Tony scoffed.

"Shut up, Tony. Let's just be glad they offered it to us." John snapped, getting to his feet and beginning to pace. "Otherwise we'd be spending another two months in detention." He added.

"Yeah, whatever." Tony shrugged.

John took a few deep breaths, feeling nervous despite himself. It didn't help that the door flew open dramatically, causing him to leap a couple feet in the air in surprise. Whirling around, he came face to face with a dark, curly haired, smirking youth wrapped in a dark coat twice his size and a scarf secured so tightly round his throat it was a wonder he hadn't asphyxiated.

"Did I frighten you?" The boy grinned.

"No!" John replied. "I mean, no, you didn't scare me, I was just a little surprised."

The boy's smile slipped away, his features becoming a smooth mask of indifference. "I'm sure that was it."

"So, you must be Sherlock Holmes." John said awkwardly.

"I must be."

"Well, it's nice to meet you."

"Your tone says otherwise." Sherlock replied.

"Uh, I- I am very pleased to meet you." John said, forcing an extra amount of cheer into his voice.

"Uh-huh." Sherlock glanced away, electing to stare around the room.

John cleared his throat, holding out a hand which the boy ignored. "Um… I'm John, by the way. John Watson. I'll be one of your… guides while you get settled in." He told the younger boy, gesturing for the other three to get up and make their own introductions.

Tony bounded forwards, all self-assured smiles and eyes of pure seduction. "Hi! The name's Anthony Stark, but you can just call me Tony. Nice to meet you, Sherly."

"Do not call me Sherly." Sherlock retorted crossly, zeroing in on Tony and fixing him with a withering glare.

"Whatever you say, Locky." Tony laughed.

"Don't call me Locky either!"

"Tony." Bruce said reproachfully. "Maybe you should just use his proper name. I doubt he's going to like any of the names you come up with." He turned to Sherlock, offering his usual small, crooked smile. "Hello, Sherlock. My name's Bruce Banner."

"Hello." Sherlock replied dismissively, still glaring at Tony.

"And, I'm Rory Williams. The four of us are going to be showing you around, so, if you get stuck or anything, you can just ask one of us for help."

"I highly doubt I'll need your help. Mycroft probably set all this up to keep an eye on me."

"Uh, excuse me?" Rory asked with a nervous laugh, glancing to the others uncertainly.

"Who's Mycroft?" John queried.

"He's my older brother. He was rather annoyed at me for blowing up Eton's science lab." Sherlock explained. "I don't know why. It's not like the equipment was all that special."

"You blew up a science lab? Is that why you were sent here? Hell, I do that every other week." Tony told him brightly.

"That was one part of it." Sherlock answered cryptically.

"Ah, your all introduced? Good. Why don't you boys go… get to know each other a little more in the… library? I'll get you some passes, but I don't want you skipping the entire day. Tony, that means you." Coulson announced to the room in general, bustling through the doorway. He pulled out a small stack of hall passes, scrawled his signature and handed them out. "Now get lost."

"It was nice talking to you too." Tony replied sarcastically, leading the others out of the room.

Tony collapsed on Rory's bed in an undignified head, eliciting an annoyed grunt from Rory, who attempted to shove him off but to no avail. Giving up, Rory flopped onto the carpet, letting out a sigh. Bruce followed suit, albeit more gracefully, cuddling his bag close to his chest. John perched on the edge of Rory's bed, shrugging off his bag and ignoring the splinter of pain that accompanied the motion.

"You seem to like Roman culture." Sherlock observed, glancing around the room.

"Uh, yeah. It's… cool. And it's interesting." Rory replied cautiously.

"Don't get him started on the architecture." Bruce murmured.

Tony chuckled. "That's our Rory. The Doctor sort of favours him for that; calls him 'Rory the Roman' and stuff like that."

Sherlock raised one finely shaped brow. "Sort of favours him?"

"Well, he likes the fact he's interested in history and everything but… I don't know. They just have very different views. Not compatible, you know."

"You make us sound like a cat and a dog. We do get along sometimes." Rory said.

"Yeah, once in a blue moon."

"So, Sherlock, um, what subjects are you taking this?" John asked, while the other two began to bicker incessantly.

"AP Chemistry, AP Physics, AP Biology, English, AP Mathematics, and…"

"And?" Bruce prompted.

"And… a study block."

"I didn't think they let anyone in our year have a study block." John frowned.

"They made an exception." Sherlock retorted.

"Oh… okay. Um, do you have any hobbies?"

Tony let out a derisive snort. "Do you have any hobbies? What are you, twelve? We're not in one of those stupid icebreaker games they make us do every year."

"Shut up, Tony!" John yelled.

"You shut up, midget!"

"We're the same height!"

"I'm still taller!" Tony declared, jumping up and off the bed. With a mighty shout, he ripped open the door and ran for his life, John hot on his heels.

Bruce let out a sigh, shaking his head. "I suppose now would be a good time to do my homework. It should be at least fifteen minutes before those two get back here."

"You do whatever makes you happy. I think I'll just lay here and try to guess the meaning of life." Rory replied, closing his eyes.

Bruce rolled his eyes, turning to grin at Sherlock. "That's Rory's code for sleeping, by the way."

"Uh-huh." Sherlock murmured, running his fingers along the spines of Rory's haphazardly stacked books. "Tell me, have there been any interesting murders lately?"

"Well, I know that Mr Patterson recently killed his wife."

"Boring. I said interesting murders."

"Oh, well, there have been lots of disappearances from around the town, and people have a tendency to die in some pretty strange accidents, but those all happened decades ago."

Sherlock's eyes shone with barely contained glee. "Really? What ones do you know of?"

"I know a few of the stories written in SJS's diary." Bruce answered, flicking through his book.

"Who's SJS?"

"A student who was around ten or so years ago. Whoever they were, they were really, er, curious about school legends, so they wrote down all the ones that were floating around the campus, and then started investigating them. Apparently SJS discovered all of these horrifying truths about the school, so they made him disappear. But he left his diary with one of his friends, who copied it all out into a second book. Though they say that the friend hid them in his room and the next time he pulled them out, they were missing several pages." Rory replied, reeling off the explanation in a tired, I've-said-this-a-million-times-and-I'm-really-tired-of-saying-it tone. "No one ever managed to find them. That is, no one but Tony."

"He found them?" Sherlock said sceptically.

"Yeah. Then he dragged us off to go look for secret tunnels and we got into huge trouble because his stupid robot couldn't control itself."

"Like creator, like creation." Bruce smiled.

"So, where would one find SJS's diary?" Sherlock inquired.

"Um, I think I have a copy of it in my room somewhere. We can go get it when Tony and John get back."

"Okay." Sherlock mumbled, clamping down on his disappointment.

As a scream that Rory and Bruce would later identify as Tony ripped through the halls of Pandemonium High, a dark cloud drifted through the sky above, and a dark-hearted man trudged his way through the grounds, preparing for an evil deed. Like a fox after a lamb, he slipped into the forest at the back of the school and disappeared amongst the shadows.